Forms for an ocean

Edited by Susan M. Schultz

Poems by Hsia Yü

Use your psychic power to bend a piece of metalUse your psychic power to stop the hands of a clockUse your psychic power to flick off the switchI can smell you in my skinI can smell you in my skinI can smell you in my skinI’m experiencing what is more what is more I am experiencing the experience

As for the restLet me carve it character by character on a single grain of riceAs for the restLet me carve it word by word on that strand of hairAs for the restI brought the ransom to the agreed upon locationI came at the appointed time

But the kidnapper never showed his faceHe’s always been so hesitantI can’t understand this hesitation on his partI never even called the policeI don’t even know the person he’s holdingI too have been lured by the graceful style of being takenBy this business of being tied up and waiting

They missed plenty of chancesTo see their old friends and relativesThey are severely agitated personalitiesWho hunger constantlyTo express all the myriad thoughts in their headsBut often they have no one to listen toThey want another chanceAn omniscient narrator who does not appear in the poemHe’s like a creaking pendulum teetering back and forth with narrationsHe can’t afford to replace

— written in English by the poet

11 Massive opportunities to see old relatives and friends

They long for massive opportunitiesSee old relatives and friendsThey are the serious place the individuality which agitatesWho often thirstsExpress in their heads all the countless methodsBut often there is nobody listening attentivelyThey long for other opportunitiesAn omniscient narrator who does not appear in the poemHe is like a loud creaky pendulum stumbling over and over in his narrativeHe cannot replace them

— a back translation by Steve Bradbury, off Sherlock’s Chinese version

Cinema Is Superseding the Gaze

All you have to do is find yourself some amateur actorsAnd a bargain-basement video camThat can film in natural light and ambient soundYour actors don’t even have to actIn fact you’re better offIf they just glance now and then at the cameraAnd move around a bitExchanging the occasional line of conversationWe have all the time in the worldFor we’re making a road movieAnd it should be pretty goodTurns out one of the actors is seriously narcolepticWhich is why we have this baby alarm

Susan M. Schultz’s feature on Pacific poetries brings together “forms for an ocean”: work that meets and exceeds the notions of containment and fathoming that accompany any effort at identifying a region for poetry. Essays and poems are collected here along with a gallery of visual works by Hawai’i artists.